He Asked for Comfort
by Crysania
Summary: Rumplestilskin asks for comfort in their new world. Regina finds a new way to torment the imp by having him married to his worst enemy, Captain Hook. Golden Hook, some Rumbelle, total crack. Rated M for language.


It's just another day, really. Mr. Gold, proprietor of the local pawnshop and general town bastard, closes up his shop. There's been no one in all day. That's not really a surprise. People tend to avoid him. He's not friendly. His shop is dark and cold and he haunts it like the ghost of antiques past. But perhaps more than that, he lives in a small town. They don't accept things easily. They certainly don't accept change or people who are different.

He knows the way they look at him.

He knows the whispers behind his back.

He'd think that after all this time (and how long _had_ it been really?) they'd be used to him. But no, town gossip is what it is and he is still very much the subject of it all. The reclusive Mr. Gold. The landlord who owns their property. The bastard who raises their rent if they look at him wrong. How did he end up with the town drunk who spent most of his time down at the docks staring out at sea, watching for a ship that never seemed to come home?

He knows how it looks to the rest of the town, but they can all go to hell for all he cares. They're nothing to him. Just pieces to move around on the chess table, people who he can make dance to his tune if he so much as looked at them funny.

"Darling!" He hears the voice before he sees him and he sighs. He's _happy_. He tells himself that each and every day, even if the relationship has turned cold and empty, even if his love spends more time haunting the Rabbit Hole and the docks. "Have you come to watch with me?" The words are slurred and Gold steps closer.

"No, dearie." He doesn't mean them to come out so cold, so tight. "I'm here to take you home." He wants to take him to counseling. He wants to talk about things. But even the idea of it weighs him down.

"I'm not ready." That pout used to be so attractive. In some ways it still is. Gold feels himself begin to give. He knows what this leads to.

It leads to apologies.

It leads to _I won't ever drink again I swear_.

It leads to the bedroom.

And then they're right back where they started. Gold back at his shop, snarling at anyone who dares walk in the door. And Charles heading back out to the docks to soak his disappointment in his husband in alcohol. Marriage had its ups and downs, Gold had found out. And based on his two marriages, the first to Millie who had left him for a Navy man some years ago, and now to Charles, who was leaving him through alcoholism and listlessness, he would have to say that marriage had far more downs than ups.

"_Charles_," he says and he's exasperated. Bloody well exasperated. He might be his true love, though he often doubts such a thing exists (Charles would be crushed if he knew and so he keeps this to himself), but the man is a mess and really, how much more can Gold take?

"Fine," comes the grumble from the bench. Charles attempts to stand, gripping the bench hard. He can't walk again, not in a straight line.

"The car's not far, love," Gold says and offers him an arm.

It's an awkward walk to the car. Charles is several inches taller than Gold and there's another thing he hears all the time in the whispers. _Who's the girl? It must be Gold with that long hair and his height_…The truth is no one is the "girl." They're just two men who finally found something with each other.

If Charles weren't so hell-bent on destroying it, they might continue to have the good thing they once did.

Gold helps his errant lover into the car, leaning down to push his feet in as Charles reaches out an arm, pulls him close, presses a messy kiss to his cheek. "You know I love you, right?"

"I know," Gold responds with. He can't say anymore. He still loves him. Of course he does. But sometimes he doesn't _like_ him very much these days. Charles is lovely, attentive, and always _so_ apologetic when he wakes up hung over and ill the next day. In those moments, when he swears off the drinking forever, Gold can almost believe that things will go back to the way they used to be.

But then he goes back to the Rabbit Hole.

And he flirts with the boys…and girls. Gold once caught him a little too close to David Nolan and he hated how _right_ they looked together. He and David…well, it was better not to think about those moments. There had been a brief fling before he had been in a car accident and ended up in a coma. There hadn't been love between them, not really. But there had been something at least, moments to feed the emptiness inside.

He saw the way the man looked at him and Charles sometimes, like he wanted to step between them. There was an anger there and Gold didn't have the strength to face it. He had been gone for a long time, really. He doesn't remember how long the coma had lasted before he had finally pulled out of it. But when David came to, he had asked after Gold and after finding out he had moved on (he hadn't meant to, he swore, but the relationship had been short and under-developed when it all went to hell), David had been angry. It was understandable, but the way he looked at him, even now, even with so many years apart (how many, exactly? he must be losing his mind as he ages), David watches him with dark eyes and a seething jealousy that makes Gold steer clear of the other man.

If only Charles were so discriminate. But he flirts and tosses a grin Gold's way. He knows what it does to _him_ as well as what it does to David and he seems to enjoy wielding a bit of control over the two men in those moments.

Everything will go back to that same place again.

Gold knows it.

And Charles knows it, even if he's getting into that blubbering stage of promising to never have another drink in his entire life and praying to whatever God he might believe in to not end up vomiting the contents of his stomach on Gold's overly expensive shoes.

It wouldn't be the first time.

When they arrive home, Gold helps him into the house. Charles stumbles every couple feet, grabbing tight to him and making him wince. It's not easy. Charles only had one hand, the stump on the other taken by a machine at the factory he once worked at. He refuses any sort of prosthetic and has managed to find his way with just one hand in the world, though he still struggles from time to time.

It's how they met, once long ago (so long, it seems like forever). Gold recovering from a car accident, relearning how to walk. Charles recovering from the factory accident, learning how to cope with only one hand . They had bonded and what grew out of it had been natural at the time.

"Come on," Gold grinds out. "Just two more steps up and then we're in the house."

They manage to make it to the door before Charles wraps his arms around Gold and pulls him close against him. It's comforting, really. Gold is always the one in charge, but he feels tiny next to the other man and somehow he has always enjoyed that (_was_ he the girl?). "You're too good to me," Charles mutters against his hair and Gold just sighs.

"Come on…you need to get to bed. And I need to collect the rent still." He's late this time around. That will surprise them, he's sure. Gold is _never_ late collecting the rent. But they've been watching Charles sink further and further into his drinking, watched his demons come to claim him, and so this shouldn't surprise them, really.

It's a bitter taste in his mouth when he realizes soon they'll be talking about the disaster his relationship has become…again. They talked about Millie. They talked about how close he was with David Nolan. They'll talk about everything falling apart again. He didn't want this. He just wanted happiness.

Was it really so difficult to be happy?

No one was in the town, that much he had realized.

There was the teacher that he could see pining after his former lover, always showing up where he was in the hopes of having some sort of conversation.

There was the waitress at the diner, dressed for sex and always planning on leaving town but never quite getting there. He always imagined he'd see her at the street corner, but he never does. It's as if she goes out on the hunt but never finds what she's looking for.

And there's the girl at the Rabbit Hole. She sits in a corner all alone, her drink in hand, and watches the patrons with a sad look about her. He knows once she had dreams. He remembers hearing her talking to others. She wants adventures. Instead she reads the same sad paperback novels over and over again and drinks away her sorrows.

The town is a wretched place full of unhappy people. And yet they all stay. Every single one of them. Each new day arrives and they wear tracks in the same ruts they've been in for years.

It's sort of frighteningly depressing if he examines it too closely.

"Darling, why don't you come to bed?" Charles suddenly asks and his hand is wrapping around Gold's chest from behind, his lips whispering dangerously close to his neck. And he wants to, Gold realizes. He wants to just forget it all and give into what Charles wants and for a moment he does, allowing the other man to run his lips across his neck, to wrap his arm around him and haul him back against him.

But then Charles stumbles.

Of course he does.

And the two of them land in a heap on the floor.

"I'm so sorry, love," Charles murmurs and Gold just shakes his head, disentangles himself from the other man.

He's on his feet before Charles can grab him and pull him back. "I have rent to collect."

"The bloody rent again?" Charles groans as he speaks the words, turns on his side.

"Don't get sick on the carpet." And Gold cannot help the bit of anger that laces the words. It wouldn't be the first time, after all. Nor would it be the last.

Charles lets out an incoherent sound and Gold turns, grabs his cane, leaves him there on the floor in the living room. He doesn't want to. He never does. But it's his coping mechanism. Run, hide. He doesn't remember when he became such a coward. Perhaps it was Millie's verbal assaults that started it. Perhaps it was when he lost his boy in the car accident. Maybe he had always been one. Maybe it had haunted him his entire life.

He doesn't honestly know.

He doesn't know if he wants to know.

Rent collection is his moment to shine, to terrify others, to hide behind the mask of nasty landlord so no one sees the truth of who he is, _what_ he is. It's easier that way.

He hits up the florist shop and collects rent from the large man there. There's something about him that sets him on edge. He hates the man. It bothers him that he can't remember why.

He finds himself at the dive bar next. It's getting on towards evening and the patrons are already filling it up. There's Keith, a large man who hits on all the ladies and who makes him want to reach for his cane, hit him hard across the face. He imagines pulling his tongue out like they do in the cartoons, wrapping it around his head. The image is absurd, but it comes to mind every time he sets foot in there. Lacey's in the back and she nods at him as he passes her by. She's one of the few people who acknowledge him. He doesn't know why that makes his heart skip a beat. She's a tiny, ratty little thing. Eyes too wide, too blue. She hides from her florist father's anger and disapproval in the corner of the bar that night as she does most. It's a sad life she leads and sometimes he's been tempted to sit down at her table, talk to her, find out why she gave up her adventures.

He never does though.

Who would accept a friendly gesture from the town monster, after all?

He collects his rent and is on his way. Same as always. The same pattern month after month, year after year. When exactly did he take ownership of the florist's shop? The bar? The diner? He doesn't remember. They've just always been _his_. And no one questions it.

His final stop of the evening is the Bed and Breakfast. Granny has always owned it. She's always had a loan from him. He supposes that loan has shrunk a little in the time since he's owned the place (when was that exactly? is his mind really slipping this bad?), but she still owes a large amount.

There's a car out in front, one he hasn't seen before. And that _is_ odd. Everything in the town is familiar. He's lived there his whole life, _forever_, though he remembers growing up elsewhere. He doesn't remember arriving in the town, taking up residence in the house that he and Charles now live in, the house Millie always hated, though he doesn't quite ever remember her being there. Like she's a ghost that haunts the place, though he recalls that she left him, took off for California, left nothing behind.

The car is yellow, brightly colored, one of those old bugs that people seemed to not drive anymore. It seems out of place in a town that is dull and grey. Too cheerful. Almost a blight. He steps inside and his eyes immediately go to the person who's out of place.

He knows the waitress. He knows her grandmother. They are as familiar as his own shop, his own house. He has seen them every day of his life. Or every day of the life he remembers. Surely they weren't in Scotland when he was growing up. But he feels like they were, that they have stayed with him, as if the town is a creation of his own mind and he's really a psychiatric patient holed up in the basement of the hospital.

Maybe he is.

No one has ever told him he isn't.

Maybe he's the only real one here. Sometimes he feels he must be as he goes about his daily activities, feeling like he's done the same thing day in and day out for centuries, as if nothing around him is actually _real_.

He doesn't know the woman with the long blond hair. She turns and glances at him as he enters and he tries to smile, though he can well imagine it looks more like a grimace on his lined face. She looks him up and down, just for a moment, her face hard and her eyes tired. Then she turns back to Granny.

"I'm sorry…what?"

"Your name, child?" Granny says and her voice is soft. Stunned. She never has anyone at the inn. He doesn't ever remember someone new coming. Why _does_ this town have an inn anyway? No one visits. No one even passes through. There's a monotony there that's either a comfort or claustrophobic. He's not sure which.

"Emma," the woman says and he feels something shift. "Emma Swan."

The world splinters. For a moment he sees nothing but the shattered fragments, pieces of thread and glass and faces with smiles that are all wrong. He can't breathe and so doesn't even try, grips his cane harder (and why does he have a cane? he doesn't need a cane) and tries to gain his bearings. His eyes shut and the fragment shift and the world reforms and he opens his eyes again to find everyone staring at him.

But he's watching the new woman…the _savior_…Emma Swan, daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming. And he is not Mr. Gold. He is Rumplestiltskin.

And he has made it to exactly where he wanted to be. It bloody well _worked_.

He has a son. He did not die in a car crash. He is alive and well and _somewhere_ he still cannot get to because this woman…_this woman_…who is looking at him with wide hazel eyes and looks like she might just offer him a hand, is going to be the one to break the curse and send him catapulting into her world to find the beloved boy he has lost.

"Are you…" the woman starts to ask but she's interrupted by the Widow Lucas. Granny, he realizes. They called her Granny. And her daughter Red. Here's she's Ruby and the slight change is enough to almost make him wheeze with laughter.

"It's all here," Granny says and her Widow Lucas voice seems just as harsh, just as uninterested in keeping him around as her Granny voice did in their world.

"Of course it is," he murmurs. His eyes do not leave the savior as he takes the money and tucks it into the pocket of his jacket. He doesn't count it and he knows that is cause for raised eyebrows. It's out of the ordinary.

But he is not Mr. Gold.

And Rumplestiltskin does not care about money.

He can spin straw into gold. Not here in this magicless world. But he can. Somewhere. Perhaps even again someday, when he brings magic to their world.

He turns then. He needs to leave. He needs _air_, quiet, he needs to think. "Have a nice stay," he says to the savior and meets her eyes for the first time. "Emma." That _name_. He had fought so hard for it. _So hard_. Just so he could have this moment.

Leaving, he doesn't know where to go, his mind is rushing out in all directions at once, trying to reconcile his world here with the world there and what needs to be done to bring them back together. He nearly runs into Lacey French as he moves away from the inn. She's huddled in the doorway, her coat threadbare around her shoulders, shivering in the slight cold.

And she's not Lacey, he realizes.

No.

She's Belle. _His_ Belle. He steps closer to her. He wants to grab her, hold her close, make sure she's real. _Belle_. He's been told she's dead. By her own hands, though he never could quite reconcile that. But she was gone from their world. He tried to find her, sent magic out to all corners of the world. She had been gone, her life force nowhere to be found.

And yet here she is.

Alive, if not well.

He steps toward her before he can even stop himself and reaches out a hand, touches her shoulder lightly, then her cheek.

"Mr. Gold?" Lacey whispers and he wonders at the strange note to her voice moment before he finds he cannot stop himself. He pulls her into his arms, and tries to choke back the sob that threatens to escape. He doesn't want to cry on her shoulder, but it's _Belle_ and she's _alive_ and he never ever thought he'd see her again.

"Lacey," he finally says, pushing away from her. She doesn't remember. He wants to kiss her. Would she remember if he kisses her? True love's kiss. It once worked on him, despite what he wanted. Would it work now? He moves even closer, his hand tangles in her hair and he's mere inches from her.

Her eyes meet his and there's confusion there, brows knitted together. "Mr. Gold, I thought…" She hesitates there, bites her lip. And he groans. And her eyebrows shoot up.

"Thought?"

"I thought you didn't swing that way."

It takes him a moment to understand. His old memories war with the new. He's Rumplestiltskin and he's lost his son and he's in love with Belle, who is no longer just a memory or a ghost. But no. Here he's Mr. Gold and he's married to…

Married to…

_Oh dear God_. "Regina," he mutters.

"Pardon?" Belle who is not Belle asks.

"Bloody fucking Regina." And then he's laughing. Because what else can he do? He can't do what his stomach tells him he _wants _to do. He can't turn and hurl the contents of his stomach into the bushes next to them. Because how would Belle…Lacey…react to such a thing? That's not exactly the way to woo a lady after all.

Neither is being married to a man.

Married…to a man…and that's not even the problem. He realizes this world has made note of his affair with David Nolan and while he finds that rather humorous he doesn't find that makes him want to lose his lunch. He wonders for a moment if Charming has the same memories and hopes the man will find them as humorous as he does.

But no…Regina has him married to his worst bloody enemy. Captain Hook. The man who ran off with Milah and how terribly amusing that in Regina's little fantasy land, Hook plays two roles. The sailor his wife Millie left to see the world with.

And his husband.

He has memories of passionate nights in bed with the bloody pirate.

"What is so funny?" Lacey asks, one hand on her hip.

He just shakes his head and reaches around her waist and hauls her up against him. She doesn't resist. Her eyes go directly to his lips and damn her if she doesn't bite her lip again with those delicate little teeth. He leans down and his lips meet hers and immediately her hands are around him, tangled in his hair and doesn't it just feel right? Maybe for the first time in his life (and this time he remembers it, remembers where he grew up and where he came from and just how long he's lived this horrid little lie Regina created).

When they part, they're both breathing hard and he doesn't want to let her go and they're wrapped around each other and damn him if he doesn't even care anymore. He's lived in torment long enough. "That marriage is a farce," he mutters. "Remind me to tell you about it sometime."

He doesn't know what Belle will think of the life he's lived during the curse, but he hopes that she will either be as revolted or as amused as he is. He can well imagine the words she'd have for Regina. Belle is no shrinking violet after all. She was never scared of the Dark One. She won't be scared of the Evil Queen either.

And she will always…_always_…have his protection.

"You should go back to Charles," Lacey finally murmurs and he disentangles himself from her.

"Indeed." He wants to say more, beg her to come home with him, tell her _Charles_ will be out on his rear in no time. But he doesn't. "I'll see you soon," he murmurs and Lacey, his wonderful amazing and beautiful Belle, just nods.

He alternates between laughing and wanting to vomit and wanting to kill Regina with his bare hands and wanting to go back and make love with Lacey until she remembers she's Belle and he's Rumplestiltskin and slaps him for his long-ago idiocy.

But he does none of that. Instead he unlocks the front door and hopes that _Charles_ is upstairs sleeping off the alcohol he'd consumed earlier.

"Darling?"

_Damn_.

He steps into the living room and heaves a sigh. _Charles_…Hook…is laying across the couch wearing nothing more than a pair of boxers. Covered in hearts. He remembers those. _He_ gave them to him and he cannot help the shudder that wracks his body. There's entirely too much of the man on display at the moment and he tries to look everywhere but at the couch.

"Ready for bed?" Charles says and gives him that same sexy look he's given him any number of times. The one that caused him to melt and fall into bed and forget the alcohol and the days spent staring at the sea and the arguments.

"Of course," he mutters and turns on his heels, leaving Charles alone in the living room as he makes his way to the nearest bathroom.

The damned savior better break the curse _yesterday_ or else these were going to be the longest day of his life.


End file.
